24th Danish Travel Awards: the winners

At the 24th Danish Travel Awards, everyone who is anyone in the country’s travel and tourism industry, in the top management of airlines, cruise and ferry companies, hotels, agencies, operators, DMCs, car hire companies and more, congregated at the unique, historic and elaborately decorated venue of the Circus Building in central Copenhagen.

The 18 awards, whose winners were chosen by more than 2000 travel industry professionals who rated their favourites on a scale of one to five, were presented between breath-taking performances that ranged from dramatic renditions of songs from West Side Story to acrobatic feats.

Travel Media Nordic, the company that includes the Danish-language travel news websites Check-in.dk and Standby.dk and the English-language travel news site Standby Nordic, organised and presented the evening’s awards.

Canada beats the USA
Before each winner was announced, the top three nominees were revealed on a large multimedia screen behind the stage, after which the evening’s two compères announced the winner from an envelope.

After receiving the award, each winner was then light-heartedly questioned by the hosts on why they thought they deserved the award.

Among the winners this year was Canada for best overseas travel destination, beating usual long-time winner the USA, possibly because of the ‘Trump slump’ in travel to North America. The US did not even feature in the top three nominees, with Canada instead beating Australia and Thailand.

Receiving the award, Adeline Grenier, senior trade commissioner at the Canadian Embassy, said simply: “Perhaps we were a little bit more welcoming than our neighbours in the south.”

Other trending destinations for the Danes that won awards this year included Portugal (Best Travel Partner in Europe), Spain (Best Foreign Tourist Office) and Vietnam (Best Upcoming Destination). The latter category was one of two new awards this year, the other being Best Luxury Hotel in Denmark.